151 Days (52 page)

“I was a little asshole,” I said in response. “I’m sorry I said all that.”

He began to say, “No, it was okay. I deserve—” when Robbie interrupted him.

“No, you deserved it from me. He was just being a good sidekick. Stop beating yourself up already—that’s my job.”

Tyler closed his mouth and looked at me. “Apology accepted, I guess.” He turned back to Matt and nodded toward me.

Matt sighed. “I’m sorry I threatened you and all that. I’m just a bit overprotective of Tyler.”

I looked over at Brad. “I know the feeling. It’s okay.”

“Let’s get you checked out,” my mom suggested and started to lead me over to the ambulance when Mr. Raymond stopped us.

“Stilleno,” he said, angrier than I had ever heard him. “Are you happy now? I told you that club was a mistake, and now look at it.” I was too tired to fight and honestly didn’t care anymore. “It’s done,” he went on. “The club, you starting problems, it’s over. Do you understand me?”

I just nodded, wanting him to get out of my face.

Brad moved toward him, and Mr. Raymond held up a hand. “And Mr. Greymark, before you get any smart ideas, if you so much as look at me funny, you’re expelled. I will not have you two boys running around thinking you’re in charge. This is my school, and if you want to graduate, you’ll step in line.”

“Brad, stop,” I said, pulling him back. “I just want to get out of here.”

Both Robbie and Brad looked at me to make sure I meant it, and I did. “Whatever, Mr. Raymond, you win. I just want to get my diploma and leave.”

My mom, on the other hand, was more than willing to fight for me. “My son just had his life threatened and you come over here to make threats? What in the hell is—”

Someone stepped between her and Mr. Raymond before she could finish.

“You’re done here, Jeff.” My jaw dropped open as Gayle from the diner stood there, glaring at Mr. Raymond. “Do you honestly think chastising a teenager who was being held hostage is the best use of your time?”

He looked as flustered as the rest of us felt. “Y-you’re not involved in this.”

“Do you want me to get involved?” she asked, daring him to say yes.

I honestly expected him to get back in her face, since he was the principal and she was a waitress. But after a few seconds of a stare-off, he blinked first. “I’m sorry for that. Kyle, we can talk about this another time.” You could have pushed me over with a feather when he turned around and walked away.

“What was that?” I asked her, dying to know how she did that.

She continued to watch him work his way through the crowd and away from us. For a moment it looked like she wasn’t even close to being done with him yet. I called her name again, and she looked over to me and smiled. “Long story. Go get checked out. Don’t worry about this.”

I was about to ask, but after the day I’d had, I just nodded and allowed Brad to walk me to the ambulance.

It’s good-bye, but we got one more night.

Let’s get drunk and ride around and make

peace with an empty town.

We. Can. Make. It. Right.

—Boys Like Girls

28 days left

K
YLE

F
OR
THE
next two weeks, the whole school seemed to hold its breath.

Everyone was in some stage of shock. We had whole days set aside to talk about our feelings if we wanted to. Jeremy was charged with about half a dozen crimes, but none of them were filed by me. Though Brad, my mom, Tyler, and just about everyone who talked to me tried to convince me otherwise, I refused to say one word against Jeremy and what he had done. I told Jennifer’s dad he was sick and that he needed help, but I don’t think he was in any mood to listen, since all of a sudden the real world had come to Foster.

Brad was never more than three feet from me the entire time. The only time he left was to go home and sleep and when I forced him to go finish the baseball season. The team had made it to the playoffs, and there was no way they had a chance without him playing. At first he said he didn’t care, he wanted to stay with me. It was sweet, but I wanted him to play. He had already given up on A&M, and though we hadn’t said anything yet, it was pretty clear he wanted to come to California with me.

And yes, I know it’s silly, but I felt like I was taking parts of his life away from him, and I wanted him to at least have one last winning season. He deserved it. And it only took about six hours of debating for him to see that as well. He hit a seventh-inning double that allowed the guy at third to score that won us the game. He was so freaking happy after that moment he stopped fighting me and started playing again without argument.

Which left me some time to try to mend a lot of burned bridges.

I started with Sammy, who hadn’t been to school since the shooting. There had been a flurry of gossip flying around about what and why Jeremy had done what he had done. Most of them revolved around Sammy, who people had assumed was still friends with him. It was one of those things I really hated about high school: you see two people, don’t know them, so you write this little story in your head about who they are and then that becomes the reality. Sammy was just the blue-haired girl who hung out with that Goth guy and nothing more. I had no illusions I wasn’t referred to as the mouthy kid who’d made Brad gay.

The only good thing about getting held hostage was that when you wanted to cut school, they assumed it was because you were still traumatized from the experience and said nothing about it. I told Brad that I was going to talk to Sammy, and of course he wanted to go with me. Not to talk to her, to make sure I was okay. Overnight I had become Whitney Houston because Brad thought he was Kevin Costner all of a sudden.

If you don’t get that reference, seriously, go watch that movie. I can wait.

I assured him I needed to talk to her alone and that he needed to practice for the playoffs that weekend. It was a bit of misdirection but dangling baseball in front of him was the only way I could get him to stay.

I picked up some doughnuts downtown and made my way to Sammy’s house.

She answered the door in midknock. It was pretty clear she was still pissed off at me. She said nothing, just stood there staring at me.

“Um, hey,” I said, not sure how to handle silence.

Nothing.

“I, I wanted to come talk and….”

“So talk.”

Going to be one of
those
kind of talks.

“I was an asshole and completely rude to you. You were right, Jeremy was the kind of person that club was made for, and I shouldn’t have chased him off. You were my friend, and I should have listened to you, but I was too busy freaking out over college and Brad and everything. I forgot what all this was about.”

It was a lot to say in one breath.

“And I brought doughnuts,” I added.

She sighed and looked away for a second, trying to compose her thoughts. “Look, Kyle, I don’t think I can do this anymore. You and Jeremy, you’re like the exact same type of person in a lot of ways. One of them is how you treat your friends. I wasn’t your sidekick, wasn’t your little helper. I was supposed to be your friend and an equal, and when push came to shove, you treated me no better than Jeremy did. So fine, I accept your apology. But I don’t think I can be friends with people who treat me like that anymore.”

I wished I could argue with anything she said, but I couldn’t.

“You’re right, and I’m sorry,” I admitted, feeling so guilty for doing that. “You shouldn’t be treated like that, and if you ever give me the chance again, I never will.” It was superawkward as neither one of us commented. Finally I handed the doughnuts over to her and mumbled, “Sorry.”

I practically ran away from her house. I didn’t expect her to call after me and tell me to stop.

Turns out I was right—she didn’t.

The next stop on my redemption tour of Foster was Tyler’s store. I was hoping Matt would be there too, so I could apologize to both of them at the same time. I’m pretty sure I didn’t make the best of first impressions, so I needed to let him know I wasn’t always a judgmental prick.

When I walked in, I saw the two of them behind the counter in a playful embrace, laughing. I paused as I wondered if it was too late to back out.

“Kyle?” Tyler asked as I began to backpedal.

“Oh, hey, Mr. Parker, you look busy…,” I began to explain, but he just shook his head.

“Come in. Matt just dropped by to have lunch.”

Matt had moved away from Tyler, like he was embarrassed to have been caught in a public display like that. It was weird because everyone knew they were gay and dating now, so why hide? I shook it off because it was none of my business, and even if it was, I would have no clue of how to fix it.

“I wanted to come by and say sorry,” I said, coming all the way into the shop. “I said some horrible things, and I wanted you to know I didn’t mean them.”

Tyler smiled. “Sure you did, but it’s okay. We all say things we regret when angry. Apology accepted.”

That was one.

I looked over at Matt and said, “And I wanted to say to you, I get it.” He looked confused. “I understand why you said what you did. If someone came at Brad like that, I would have gone at him with a bat. You were just protecting what you love.”

It was hard to judge his feelings by his face, but he didn’t seem pissed. Tyler nudged him, and Matt rolled his eyes and said, “And I apologize for being a huge asshole. Foster has changed a lot since I left. Still not used to not making waves.”

“Foster’s changed?” I asked, surprised. “Seems like it’s trapped in amber to me.”

“That’s ’cause you’re a kid….” I gave him a look. “No, that’s ’cause you’re young. Nothing moves fast enough for you. When you get older, you realize that you’d pay cash money for the world to stop spinning. Even if it was for a day.”

I understood what he was saying, but it didn’t sound like anything I would ever feel. I felt like I was like a hundred years old and getting older every day I was forced to live in this town. If I had one of those silver cars from
Back to the Future
or a police box, I would have just jumped past this part of my life and got to the next one. But I was here to make amends, not debate Tyler’s boyfriend on the concept of linear time.

“So again, I am a horrible little brat and very sorry,” I said, giving them a half bow and a flourish with my hand. They both laughed, and I felt the tension leave the room.

“So, Brad nervous about the playoffs?” Matt asked while Tyler got us all Cokes from the back.

I sighed, glad to be able to talk to
someone
about this. “He’s gone all protective den mother on me since the shooting. Like I’m made of glass or something.”

“That’s not it at all,” Matt said with infuriating certainty. I arched an eyebrow at him, but the fact I was trying to be extra nice Kyle stopped me from commenting he didn’t know a damn thing about Brad. Seeing my disbelief, he elaborated. “He’s not afraid you’re made out of glass. He’s afraid he is, and if he loses you again, he will shatter into a million pieces and just die. I saw him the day of the shooting. You aren’t his crush, and you aren’t his love. You’re the center of his universe, the sun he orbits around, and if you were gone, he’d just go flying out into the dark. Never to be seen again.”

My mouth dropped a little because it was the most romantic thing I had ever heard, and coming out of his mouth, it sounded so… matter-of-fact.

“Don’t kid yourself, Kyle,” he said in a softer tone. “There are guys out there who search their entire life to find the person who makes them whole. Rogue planets that no one can see because the sun doesn’t shine on them anymore. Life, like space, is a big place, and the odds of you hitting something else is so remote, it isn’t worth mentioning. So don’t take what you guys have for granted. It’s the most important thing in the universe.”

Tyler walked out with the Cokes, and Matt’s whole posture changed. I saw the serious mask slide down over his face. He sat up straighter. I didn’t get it until I saw Tyler hand him the Coke and give him a smile. I could see their fingers touch as they passed the bottle and the way Matt smiled back at him.

Suddenly I got it. Tyler was his sun.

It wasn’t obvious, but his eyes lingered when Tyler walked away, and his entire posture leaned toward Tyler. From the outside you’d think Matt was the one in charge, since he was so aggressive to defend Tyler, but that was the illusion. Where Tyler went, Matt would follow, and neither one would ever question it.

Tyler handed me the Coke, and I understood Brad just a little bit more.

Matt took a drink and asked me, “So, not that I’m complaining, but what brought about this whole mea culpa?” Tyler gave him a questioning look, and Matt added, “It’s a religious thing.” Satisfied, Tyler went back to his Coke.

I explained to them my whole tour of apology and that they were one stop in many.

“So who’s your next victim?” Tyler asked.

“Robbie.”

No one talked for a while.

“Be careful,” Tyler warned. “He’s been in a bad place for a long time. I don’t think this whole shooting thing went down well with him.”

Matt gave him a quizzical look. “Did it go down well with anyone?”

“You know what I mean. Robbie has… he’s lost a lot, and when faced with losing more, he just shuts down. So if he’s snippy, it isn’t you.”

I finished my Coke and handed the empty bottle over. “Well, no time like the present. Wish me luck.”

I had a feeling I was going to need it.

W
HEN
I
got to Twice Upon a Time, I wondered if it was even open. The blinds were still closed, and the sign hadn’t been turned over to Open. But Robbie’s car was in the parking lot, so he had to be there at one point. I rapped on the window a few times before the door cracked open.